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How To Make Software Projects Fail
Bob Abooey writes: "SoftwareMarketSolution has an interesting interview of Joel Spolsky, of Joel on Software fame. Joel, a former programmer at Microsoft, discusses some of the reasons he thinks some very popular software companies or projects fail, including Netscape, Lotus 123, Borland, etc." This interview brings out some mild boiler-room stories which sound like they could be the basis of a good book, along the lines of Soul of a New Machine .
people tell stories in boiler rooms?
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Bob Abooey is getting stories posted on Slashdot?
Now I've seen everything.
--perdida
Normally I don't reply to anonymous idiots, but I'm in a bad mood today, so I'll let you know that one of my programs just happens to be more or less a de facto world standard. And I graduated university two years ago, thank you very much.
Why, no! Everyone uses RH7.2 on x86, and everyone has the current directory in their PATH. Stop encouraging anarchy!
TO BUY A NEW CAR WOULD MAKE YOU SEXUALLY ATTRACTIVE.
Show me a government owned power company in the USA.
OK, I'll mention a few: TVA (i.e., Tennesse Valley Authority, which lifted an entire region out of utter abject poverty during the Depression, SoCal's DWP (which not only distributes water and generates power, but also manages to generate power while distributing water), Sacramento's Municipal Utility District (MUD) which generates and distributes most of the power in north-central CA, and finally the BPA (i.e., Bonneville Power Administration) which built and still operates most of the hydroelectric power generation and transmission in the Columbia watershed. The Northwest has a lower cost of living partly due to low power costs (though it isn't guaranteed and it has been rising) and low water costs (likely to continue given near term global warming effects). Water, Power (and soon, Broadband) are _exactly_ the infrastructure investments that our government does well and should control. Private utilities are very vulnerable to economic fluctuations where their executives' self-interest leads them to try foolish deals and daft accounting tricks in search of short-term performance, while government can weather tough quarters (and years) without worrying about the stock analysts.
In case you hadn't noticed, the major private power utilities in California are in bankruptcy and are desperately beseeching the State to bail them out (and might yet stick the tax and rate paying citizens after all, given how cozy their lobbyists have been with the CA PUC, Legislature, and Executive branch fixers, just about forever). One can only hope that the CA government and regulators now realize that the public is watching with interest and will nail them if they screw it up further, so they might fix it properly.
Of course, private utility executives and board members never do get held accountable, nor do their government co-conspirators, but if things were to be really just, there'd be a few of them hung from lamp-posts in San Francisco before this is over. Screwing the public for private gain is just the sort of thing that deserves "extreme prejudice."
Government utilities are a good thing, mostly (WPPS notwithstanding, but that was a _private_ boondoggle admittedly triggered by a BPA error). Private utilities are simply disasters waiting to ripen, explode, and be discovered, unless they are regulated into castrated quasi-governmental entities. The term "private utility" really is an oxymoron.
That's exactly what capatilism is all about. Cutting corners: how little effort can you put into making the largest profit? How many people can you anally rape in the wages department before no one will work you for? How shitty of an excuse for software can you throw together and still have it look pretty and work for a few hours? Who cares if 36 solder is insufficient to guarantee safety? It works doesn't it? That's where the bottom line is: the almighty buck. Don't kid yourself -- capatilism has always been all about this shit and always will be.
That's why the good people of the Soviet Empire enjoyed high standards of living, reliable high tech products and a great track record of industrial safety then?
Capitalism is about giving the market what it wants - nothing more, and nothing less. If free people, making their own purchasing decisions with their own money want something, the Capitalist system will find a way to sell it to them. If they choose not to buy it, either because it's not a good product, or they don't like the corporation making it, then Capitalism will make sure that this corporation soon ceases to exist.
That's what terrifies Socialists, the concept that the People and not the Party really are in control of the means of production in a Capitalist society.
And if you don't like it, try living in a non-capitalist society for a while... like Afghanistan.
Well, you can also get a disease and die from sex, bad comments won't do that to you... Bad comments are more like a case of herpies.
And if you don't like it, try living in a non-capitalist society for a while...
I did. There's one called Germany that I rather liked. You know, where they have sane laws instead of Anything-Goes Matrial Arts Mammon Worship
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